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I just wanted to say things are still happening around here! A new release (3.1.3) will be out soon, which should fix the MacBook Air SSD issue. Plans are in place for 3.2. The new website is still being worked on- as always I’ve changed it a few times. And there may be an exciting announcement in the new year!

We’ve had a few reports of recent MacBook Air SSD issues. The drive reports as passed, but the attributes report FAILING_NOW. This is a possible firmware bug, but the drives are fine. We are doing more research and will keep the blog updated if anything changes.

Just a little notice, in the next few weeks, I’ll be switching over to a new server with a newly designed website. I’m hoping its going to be a pretty fancy and eye-pleasing design. I’m switching from a shared host to a VPS, partly for cost and performance, but also because I like to mess with that stuff.

Old URLs will be redirected, including the RSS feed for the blog.

I’m excited about a new update- it will be only the third website design in company history, and the first since 2008!

For those of you looking for suggestions for enclosures or other methods of reading SMART off of drives, this post is for you. I wanted to share a couple of enclosures and a cool “connector” that support reading SMART data.

First, for buying an exclosure to put a drive in or one with a drive, I highly recommend the Mercury Elite Pro enclosures from Other World Computing. I’ve been a customer of OWC for over a decade, and they always have quality products and they stand by them. The Mercuries come in both 2.5 and 3.5 inch sizes. I bought two of the 2.5 inch sizes for SuperDuper clones of my laptop, and I rotate them weekly offsite. I bought a 3.5 inch size for a HD out of a computer I was retiring, since it was 3TB. It serves as a Time Machine backup of my Mac Mini server. The 2.5 inch ones support eSATA, FW800, and USB, while the 3.5 inch size supports just FW800 and USB. Both sizes support reading SMART data over FireWire (I didn’t try USB), but not eSATA for the small size.

Second, a very interesting connection is the StarTech HD Docking Station. This handy station is great for testing HDs or using them quickly. It connects via USB, and supports reading SMART data. It supports both 2.5 and 3.5 inch drive sizes. I find it very handy for checking the myriad of HDs I’ve collected over the years, and also for testing out SMART Utility with different types of bad drives.

I hope that helps, and if anybody else has any more suggestions, I’d love to hear them! My plan is to add a page to list supported enclosures and docking stations, and maybe even add a way within SMART Utility to easily notify me.

Two years ago Volitans Software joined the internet wide protest against SOPA and PIPA. Today, we are joining another internet wide protest against the NSA. The NSA threatens the security and openness of the internet, as well as the liberties of all Americans. They must be reigned in. Call or write your legislators today.

A fascinating study done by Backblaze on the lifetimes of hard drives. After four years of running 25,000 drives, they analyzed all of their data. Based on that, they found that 95% last just 1 year, 94% last 2 years, 90% last 3 years, 80% last 4 years, and just 50% last 5 years.

My conclusion from this is make sure you check the drive at least once a day with SMART Utility, but even more importantly- always have backups.

SMART Utility has been tested on the Mavericks public release , and there is one bug discovered- email notifications are failing. And update will be out shortly to address this issue (as well as fix a longstanding gmail bug).